Setting Sourcebooks

The free BattleTech Universe PDF provides a taste of the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere, while touching upon the other myriad factions such as The Clans, Periphery, and mercenaries. Each faction represents a fully fleshed-out star-spanning realm, with its own history, cultural identity, fighting style and so on.

The following sourcebooks expand those faction settings in various ways. From the Handbooks that provide an in-depth look at each faction’s history and culture, to Masters And Minions: The StarCorps Dossiers that provides an overview of the most influential personalities (along with a brief overview on the current state) of a given faction during the Jihad Era: each helps bring the universe alive, immersing players into the BattleTech gaming experience.

It is the year 3145. Only thirteen years have passed since Gray Monday—the day that most of humanity’s interstellar communications grid suddenly and mysteriously collapsed. Plunged into darkness and fearing the worst, the leaders and armies of the Inner Sphere scrambled to act, some fearing the approach of invaders, others seeking to exploit the chaos. Now, armies are on the march, war has erupted on every front, and the Republic of the Sphere—once a sign of mankind’s hope for a brighter future—has retreated behind its fortress walls to prepare for the inevitable.

Field Manual: 3145 updates the military and political state of the Inner Sphere as it stands in the year 3145. This report includes a brief history and overview of recent developments in the BattleTech universe, as well as current TO&Es for the major ’Mech forces and mercenary commands employed by the realms and Clans of the Dark Age Inner Sphere. Special era-specific rules are also included, enabling players to create characters and forces for use in campaigns set in and after this critical point in BattleTech history.

eBook AvailabilityField Manual: 3145 is available from the following eBook/PDF vendors:

It’s a whistle-stop tour of the universe! Every system and planet where mankind treads in the BattleTech universe has a story, for those with the drive to explore it. Take a tour of the stars humanity now calls home, experience awesome new worlds, immerse yourself in the local civilization, and prepare to do battle in exotic locales.

The victim of a devastating cosmic impact and war, Manassas is still one of the Inner Sphere’s safest planets, except for the so-called "Dead Zones" dotting the world. In Touring the Stars: Manassas, players will learn about the famed Manassas Run, an annual world-spanning treasure hunt for valuable LosTech where anything goes and the prize of becoming Run Champion is all that matters.

Touring the Stars is a whistle-stop tour of the universe! Every system and planet where mankind treads in the BattleTech universe has a story, for those with the drive to explore it. Take a tour of the stars humanity now calls home, experience awesome new worlds, immerse yourself in the local civilization, and prepare to do battle in exotic locales.

eBook Availability Touring the Stars: Manassas is available from the following eBook/PDF vendors:

It was the middle of the twenty-eighth century. Two hundred years after the Age of War, all of mankind now lived, united, under one flag: the Star League. Defending and policing this vast realm nearly 3,000 worlds strong was the largest army ever known to humanity: the Star League Defense Force. Harnessing the largest fleet of WarShips ever assembled, the most advanced technologies in BattleMech and aerospace design, and the finest, most disciplined training regimens in known space, the SLDF was the invincible might that kept the feuding Houses of the Inner Sphere in line.

Field Manual: SLDF describes the single greatest military force the Inner Sphere has ever seen: the Star League Defense Force. Including a brief history and overview of the SLDF, its formation, organization, and training programs, this book provides the most detailed look ever at the army that protected the Inner Sphere before the treachery of Stefan Amaris and the Succession Wars that soon followed. Special rules are also included, enabling players to create Star League forces for use in campaigns set in one of BattleTech’s most storied eras.

eBook Availability Field Manual: SLDF is available from the following eBook/PDF vendors:

The year is 3085. In the wake of the Jihad, a new realm—the Republic of the Sphere—has been born. Drawing war-weary masses from all over the Inner Sphere, the Republic stands for unity and security, in the hopes that never again will its worlds suffer from centuries of relentless war. But even though the common threat has finally passed, few believe they have seen the last of war. As the combined realms and Clans of the Inner Sphere struggle to rebuild, a new balance of power has begun to emerge.

Field Manual: 3085 updates the military and political state of the Inner Sphere in the years following the end of the Jihad and the formation of the Republic of the Sphere. This report includes a brief history and overview of recent developments in the BattleTech universe (including the formation and organization of the Republic of the Sphere), as well as current TO&Es for all of the major ’Mech and mercenary commands employed by the realms and Clans of the post-Jihad Inner Sphere. Special rules are also included, enabling players to create characters and forces for use in campaigns set in and after this critical point in BattleTech history.

eBook Availability Field Manual: 3085 is available from the following eBook/PDF vendors:

Who is the Director of the Internal Security Force? Planetary ruler of Regulus? Current Marshal of the Armies? Merchant Factor of Clan Diamond Shark?

As one of the most powerful interstellar corporations in the Inner Sphere—with satellite plants in every House—such questions are imperative for StarCorps Industries. In the tumultuous time of the Jihad, as power brokers fall and new personalities rise to prominence, the answers to such questions can mean the difference between a fat in-the-black account and operations in the red. And no corporation, much less one as powerful and far reaching as StarCorps Industries, treats failure well.

Masters and Minions: The StarCorps Dossiers is a sourcebook from the perspective of StarCorps Industries, compiled from dozens of sources by an army of administrators, all with an eye towards furthering StarCorps markets and interest. Masters and Minions is a complete who’s-who of the BattleTech universe, with well over a hundred personalities detailed. Short overviews of all the major and most minor factions of the Inner Sphere are also included, briefly covering such details as their most notable factories, planets and military forces.

eBook Availability Masters and Minions: The StarCorps Dossiers is available from the following eBook/PDF vendors:

Assailed for centuries by enemies on every side, House Liao’s Capellan Confederation faced its own oblivion time and again. Now, nearly forty years since the realm teetered on the very brink of collapse, the Confederation has returned, reclaiming the pride and unity lost when the armies of Steiner and Davion rolled across their worlds to shatter them. Led by the crafty and charismatic Sun-Tzu Liao, and embracing the spirit of Xin Sheng—rebirth—House Liao once again has become a political and military power to be reckoned with, defying those who would see them fail, and deadly to all who oppose them.

Handbook: House Liao compiles the history, politics, and cultures of the Inner Sphere’s smallest—and perhaps least understood—Great House. This sourcebook also includes game rules for use with Total Warfare, Tactical Operationsand A Time of War: The BattleTech RPG, including new support vehicles, equipment, creatures, and more!

Handbook: House Liao continues the faction-based Handbook series that updates the political, economic, and historical details of the major realms in the BattleTech universe.

eBook Availability Handbook: House Liao is available from the following eBook/PDF vendors:

The peoples of the Inner Sphere often consider themselves the epitome of technology and culture and relegate the denizens of the frontiers of known space to second-class citizenry, or worse. And yet it took the combined armies of the Inner Sphere more than twenty years to subjugate them during the forming of the first Star League half millennia ago.

Magistracy of Canopus, Taurian Concordat, Marian Hegemony, Outworlds Alliance and Circinus Federation. Each is a unique star-spanning empire whose hardy-people have carved out their freedom with bare hands: an identity they will not give up without a fight. Even the Great Houses have begun to learn that underestimating these Periphery States is dangerous indeed.

Handbook: Major Periphery States collates the essential history, politics and culture of the Major Periphery States into a single volume. More than a mere sourcebook, Handbook: Major Periphery States provides rules for both Total Warfare and A Time of War: The BattleTech RPG game play, including new support vehicles, creatures and more!

eBook Availability Handbook: Major Periphery States is available from the following eBook/PDF vendors:

BattleTech is a science-fiction “space opera”: a factional, militarized universe set in the thirty-first century, a future where humanity has spread to the stars and spawned titanic interstellar empires, each nation controlling hundreds of worlds across a region of space stretching a thousand light years and beyond.

Initially published over thirty years ago as a tabletop board game, BattleTech has gone on to become one of the gaming industry’s most important and longest-lasting science-fiction universes.